BA does still stand head and shoulders above the rest in some areas though – it is praised for the excellent service of its cabin crew, and it has not resorted to asking customers to pay to sit next to each other like Ryanair.

But many have questioned if that is enough.

One passenger called Tushar Chaturvedi‏ said: “How can you behave like a low cost airline when you aspire to be premium carrier.”

Another called Mark Cuthbert‏ added: “The world’s favourite airline’ is a million miles away.”

A BA spokesperson told Sun Online that much of their customer feedback had been about lowering fares, so they had been striving to achieve that with the recent cutbacks.

The news the BA is also shrinking its legroom in Economy from 30 to 29 inches – which would make it more cramped than the no-frills Ryanair and the same as EasyJet, was also met with concern

They said: “British Airways provides choice and value for all customers.

“Our customers tell us they want low fares. Being more efficient, through measures such as increasing the number of seats in economy cabins on some aircraft and changing our catering product for short-haul economy customers, enables us to do this.

“This week, we released 65,000 seats on routes from Gatwick for fares under £40.

“Being more efficient also allows us to invest in the areas that our customers value the most.

“Over the last three years we have taken delivery of 40 new aircraft and plan to receive another 50 by 2020, and later this year we will start to introduce WiFi on our fleet.

“We don’t always get everything right, but we are listening to our customers so that we can meet their changing preferences.”